Generally, product packages are manufactured from cardboard and similar materials, which can be processed as webs or sheets and on which colours, figures and symbols can be printed in a printing machine. In addition to printing, the manufacturing of the package can include surface treatment and cutting stages, folding, applying of size and other stages.
The printing that is included in the package manufacturing has conventionally been carried out by the offset technology that has well-known advantages, such as a uniform and high print quality, a relatively easy and quick manufacturing of the printing plates, and the long useful life of the plates. As an extension to the printing machine, there can be a lacquering stage, wherein the surface of the printed material is protected and it is given its desired final appearance either by using a water-thinnable or soluble lacquer. Other types of surface treatments are also feasible. At the following stage, package blanks are cut out of the printed material by a die-cutting press, and the creases, required by folds, are made. Size is applied on desired spots of the blanks and they are folded into their final form at the end of the manufacturing process.
One disadvantage of the conventional manufacturing process of the packages is its poor applicability to manufacturing of individual pieces or small series. It is difficult or impossible to join to the printing plates of the offset technology any part, which would produce varying figures. For example, the pharmaceutical industry needs packages, which can be individualized at an accuracy of a single package to enable the traceability required by the product liability, and so that the features of the package could be used to further the follow-up of the distribution chains and to distinguish original products from counterfeits. Providing the packages with individual identifiers in printing plants that use the offset technology has required the use of a separate inkjet, matrix or other printhead, in addition to the actual printing machine.
The pharmaceutical industry is also a good example of a client of the packaging industry that demands a high safety level. Different packages are not allowed to mix during the manufacturing process, so that no products packed in a misleading way would end up in the distribution and consumers' hands. The strictest safety regulations require that when the type of package produced on a production line changes, the workers must empty the machines and their surroundings of the materials related to the previous type of package before bringing in new materials. Moving the materials causes down time that is unproductive for the production, decreasing the effectiveness of the manufacturing; particularly, if the batches to be produced are relatively small.